Newcastle United are confident they will receive some good news this week
following their failure to sign Loic Remy, with Fabricio Coloccini likely to
remain at the club.

Coloccini and his representatives will meet managing director Derek Llambias, the club’s lawyer and manager Alan Pardew to discuss his future on Wednesday after expressing his desire to return home to Argentina last week.

Having seen Queens Park Rangers hijack their bid to sign Remy at the 11th hour on Monday by offering him a huge salary of £84,000 a week, plus several lucrative bonuses and an attractive release clause if the London club are relegated, Newcastle United can ill-afford to lose their captain this month.

Coloccini is keen to go back home because of his wife’s ill health, but the Newcastle hierarchy believe the centre-back can be reasoned with and will urge him to postpone making a decision on whether to leave England until the end of the season.

Newcastle will offer to provide whatever support they can give to help the Argentina international through the problems in his personal life and believe the 30 year-old is professional enough to play on while he deals with them.

Should Coloccini continue to pursue his desire to sign for Argentina’s San Lorenzo, they will point out they do not have the means to buy him and that they expect him to honour the contract he signed in March last year.

Newcastle know they are within their rights to demand Coloccini stays, although they would prefer not to have to threaten legal action to keep him on Tyneside.

San Lorenzo have asked Newcastle to terminate the player’s contract so that they can sign him on a free transfer, but that is not going to happen.

Should Coloccini threaten to quit, they will seek compensation from him for the remaining three-and-a-half years on his contract and will prevent him from playing for another club under Fifa rules.

The Newcastle hierarchy do not expect the talks to take on such a confrontational tone, but the fact they will have a legal representative at the meeting shows they are willing to play hard ball if their captain tries to force them to release him.

In the meantime, Llambias is still pursuing other transfer targets following the Remy setback, with Lyon’s Bafetimbi Gomis and Ajax’s Siem de Jong two of the names under consideration.

Newcastle, who were warned this week they must show ambition in the transfer market by another of their star players, Hatem Ben Arfa, if they want to keep him, had looked into the possibility of signing St Etienne’s Gabon international, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, but he does not want to leave France in this transfer window.

“I am not thinking about leaving,” Aubameyang told L’Equipe. “I have a lot of interest, but the best solution is to stay at St Etienne and leave in the summer. It is very clear in my mind that these will be my last six months with St Etienne. Then, I don’t know.

“It is nice to already have offers from England and I hope to leave for a club that will allow me to keep improving. There could be a surprise, but I am not planning on staying in France.”